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Friday, April 30, 2010

A company in Panama is hoping to join in a small niche market of the fruit export business: square watermelons. The Panama Fruit Producer company has started "rounding up" the square fruit, sending its first shipment of 120 boxy melons to New York.

The first square watermelons are thought to have been produced by a Japanese farmer and have been sold in some markets in Japan for years. Diaz said the only square watermelon production in the Americas he knows about is in Brazil and California in the U.S.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Singapore threw open the doors of its second casino on Tuesday as part of a $US5.5 billion ($A5.9 billion) complex built by US gaming giant Las Vegas Sands.

The $US5.5 billion casino-resort is the world's second most expensive casino after MGM Mirage's CityCenter in Las Vegas and is expected to generate as much $US1 billion in annual profit.

Its first casino, the $US4.4 billion Resorts World Sentosa, opened for business on February 14.

Singapore, with its two mega casinos, is unlikely to overtake Macau but may steal some "high-rollers" from China as operators shift premium business to the city-state where they face an effective tax rate of 12 per cent compared with about 39 per cent in the Chinese territory.

Neighbouring Malaysia's sole casino, run by Genting Singapore's parent Genting Bhd may also lose business to Singapore's newer and swankier casinos.

Marina Bay Sands has teamed up with coach operators to offer 130 daily trips from various Malaysian cities to its doorsteps.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

A woman shows a bible, claimed to be the world's smallest, displayed at a ten-day exhibition called 'The Bible - Yesterday, Today and in the Future' in the town of Varna, Bulgaria, Saturday, April, 3, 2010. The miniature Bible contains only the Lord's Prayer, translated into seven languages. (AP Photo/Petar Petrov)

Monday, April 12, 2010

Microsoft said its new touch-screen phones -- a short, square-shaped handset called Kin 1 and a longer, more rectangular one called Kin 2 -- will be sold exclusively in the U.S. by Verizon Wireless. They are being made by Sharp Corp., which has produced Sidekick cell phones, whose software comes from Microsoft-owned Danger Inc.